It Is, What It Is
by serenitymeimei
Summary: AU. What if Mark hadn't pushed Callie toward Erica during the S4 finale? Callie/Erica


**Disclaimer:** If the girls were mine, they'd have run off to Massachusetts and had little Callica babies by now.

**A/N:** A very special thanks goes out to_ meowfreakinmeow_ for fighting with me about grammar for over a half an hour this morning, even though my brain wasn't quite up to fully grasping such a concept. *squuiiiish* ...is and mattered! *runs away*

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It was bad enough that Erica Hahn was in love with her best friend. That alone could cause monumental problems even under the most normal of circumstances. But throw in the fact that her best friend was another woman, a _straight_ woman, who was currently off fucking the biggest manwhore of Seattle Grace every chance she got? Well, that just made their screwed up situation ten times worse.

It wasn't that she chose Mark Sloan, bane of her existence, that hurt her... Okay, so that would be a lie. But, really? It's the fact that she was being left behind- yet again. Abandoned, like day old trash getting thrown into the dumpster of life. And all by the one person that she trusted most in this world. For a _penis_.

They'd been so close. She longed to return to a time where she'd go weeks without setting foot in her own home, preferring to crash at Callie's after long nights full of laughing and wine. Now, her evenings were spent alone, eating takeout on her couch where she'd watch cheesy Lifetime movies and cry until she passed out to the sounds of early morning infomercials.

It was pitiful. Erica hated who she was becoming. Starting to fall back into old habits, reverting into that lonely, hardened person that she once was.

Her only outlet ended up being surgery, not that she was surprised. Shifts blurred together easily, days quickly turning into weeks and so on. Focusing solely on hearts and sutures and saving peoples lives. She tried to ignore the stares and the whispers, she did. But the newfound silence that seemed to follow her wherever she went, once a cherished rarity, now only reminded her of just how alone she truly was. It was torture.

Callie was happy though, and that's all that mattered. It's all that she ever wanted for her, even if it happened to be at her expense, if it broke her heart in the process. She could sacrifice that much.

So, she kept her mouth shut. She watched as Callie flaunted her new relationship, unfolding in front of her like one of her nightmares. One where emotions were no longer under her control and she felt like punching something- some_one_- every time_ she_ smiled at him. Tears would brim in her eyes whenever _she_ saw her across a room and turned to flee in a blind panic. And the one time that she saw them kissing had sent her running for the bathroom, so angered and betrayed that she lost her breakfast in the process.

A month went by. Then two. But when three months rolled around, that was the last straw. She hit her breaking point.

She was tired of laying in bed at night, wondering what she'd done wrong. Enough is enough, right?

That's how the proud and independent, _I-don't-need-help-from-anybody_, Dr. Erica Hahn found herself sitting uncomfortably on a lumpy couch covered in fringy pillows as she stared into a large salt water fish tank, wishing desperately that she could shrink and grow gills. Because quite frankly, life would be so much easier under the sea.

"Erica? I'm Dr. Wyatt."

Her head snapped up, eyes focusing for the first time since she'd arrived, landing on the middle aged woman sitting thoughtfully across from her. She hadn't even heard her come in.

"Now, why don't you tell me why you're here?"

Erica sighed and picked at the lint along the edge of her labcoat, suddenly feeling the uncontrollable urge to get up and run out the door, as far away from the hospital, hell the _city_, as she could get. But she had obligations, patients, and a contract to fulfill. It just wasn't possible. So there she sat, trying to form the right words to describe exactly what had driven her there, to the need of having someone else fix her problems. Because she just didn't know what else to do anymore. She was completely lost.

"I don't make friends easily..." she started, heart pounding wildly in her chest.

She was willing to put herself through hell if it meant getting Callie back, even if she had to bare her most vulnerable side to a total stranger to do it. Because in the end, it didn't matter that she was in love with her or that they hadn't spoken more than two words to each other in weeks. No, what _really_ mattered was that she'd never made friends easily and she was going to do everything that she could to keep the one she already had.

If it didn't work out in the end, then so be it. At least she could say that she tried.

**End.**


End file.
